The plumbing system that delivers water and provides drainage in residential and commercial buildings includes hot and cold water supply lines and drain lines. These lines are generally installed in the spaces or stud bays between the vertical framing members, or support studs, within the building walls. The lines may also be installed in similar spaces, or joist bays, between the floor joists below the floors. Once the walls and subfloors have been installed, the supply and drain lines are both invisible and inaccessible, except at designated access points. These access points are positioned at locations where fixtures such as faucets, sinks, bathtubs, showers, toilets, washing machines, dishwashers, icemakers, and the like are to be connected to the supply and/or drain lines. At these locations, branches of the water supply and drain lines are typically brought together and connected to an open-front housing enclosure, or utility box, that is inset into a wall within the stud bay. Such housings provide the plumber with a convenient port to access the supply and drain lines and make up the connections with the fixture. They also provide protection for the connections. Following connection of the fixture, the open front of the housing can be closed with a removable cover or face plate to dress the opening. This allows future access in case it is necessary to shut off the water supply to the fixture for repair or replacement, or to clear the drain line.
Such utility housings include openings for entry of hot and/or cold water supply lines and a drain line. They are generally sized to provide sufficient space for up to three such lines as well as to accommodate shut-off or stop valves for the supply lines. Each housing is fastened in place within the wall space by attachment to the side of a stud. Alternatively, a housing may be connected to a pipe support bracket that is attached to and extends transversely between a pair of studs.
Previous utility boxes included supply and drain line openings in the top and bottom walls. Attachment structures were provided on the sides to enable connection of the side of the box to a stud or to a clip that could be attached to a stud or bracket. These boxes allowed entry of the supply lines only from above or below, although some allowed the supply lines to be located to the left or right of the drain line. Improved boxes were later developed to split the supply and drain lines between two boxes. This design enabled the supply and drain lines to be positioned in separate boxes, which could be mounted on opposite sides of a single stud. For example, U.S. Pat. No. 7,735,511 discloses a supply laundry box and a drain laundry box, the sidewalls of which are joined by a U-shaped clip that fits over a stud and extends down its sides, deep into the wall cavity to support the sides of the box.
Such connection clips extend far into the stud cavity and the requisite attachment structure on the housing necessitates correspondingly deep boxes. The box attachment structure also blocks the sidewalls from receiving water supply and drain lines, thereby restricting entry of these lines to the top and bottom walls of the box. In addition, the attachment structures on the sides of the box must be mounted in a vertical orientation in order to engage the connection structures on the legs of the clip. This feature prevents rotation of the boxes and makes plumbing installation more cumbersome. The configuration of such boxes also prevents connecting the boxes to each other in a stacked, vertical orientation, with supply and/or drain lines entering from the side.
It is with these observations in mind, among others, that various aspects of the present disclosure were conceived and developed.